I am a leadership advisor to Fortune 500 CEOs and Boards, author of "Hacking Leadership" (Wiley) and "Leadership Matters" (2007), the Chairman at N2Growth, a member of the board of directors at the Gordian Institute and recognized by Thinkers50 as one of the top leadership thinkers globally. I am also a syndicated columnist and contributing editor on topics of leadership, innovation and problem solving. I have been married for nearly 30 years and am a proud father and grandfather.

To Increase Revenue Stop Selling

Creating or expanding business relationships is not about selling – it’s about establishing trust, rapport, and value creation without selling. Call me crazy, but I don’t want to talk to someone who wants to manage my account, develop my business, or engineer my sale. I want to communicate with someone who desires to fulfill my needs or solve my problems. Any organization that still has “sales” titles on their org charts and business cards is living in another time and place, while attempting to do business in a world that’s already passed them by.

Engage me, communicate with me, add value to my business, solve my problems, create opportunity for me, educate me, inform me, but don’t try and sell me – it won’t work. An attempt to sell me insults my intelligence and wastes my time. Think about it; do you like to be sold? News flash – nobody does. Now ask yourself this question, do you like to be helped? Most reasonable people do. The difference between the two positions while subtle, is very meaningful.

The traditional practice of sales as a business discipline has become at best ineffective, and in many cases flat out obsolete. You see, good business practices are not static. Stale methodologies and disciplines simply die a slow and very painful death, and it is my contention the overwhelming majority of sales processes I see in today’s marketplace are just that – stale.

The problem with many sales organizations is they still operate with the same principles and techniques they were using in the 60′s, 70’s and 80’s. While the technology supporting sales process have clearly evolved, the traditional sales strategies proffered by sales gurus 20 or 30 years ago have not kept pace with market needs. They are not nearly as effective as they once were, and as I’ve alluded to, in most cases they are obsolete.

Trust me when I tell you that your existing and potential clients have heard it all before. They can see the worn-out, old school closes coming a mile away. They can sniff antiquated selling strategies, and will immediately tune out on presentations not deemed relevant. If your sales force is still FAB-selling, spin-selling, soft-selling or using any number of outdated, one size fits all selling methodologies, your sales are suffering whether you realize it or not. If you want to create revenue, increase customer satisfaction, and drive brand equity, stop selling and start adding value.

Lest you think I’ve lost my mind, I want to be clear that I’m not advocating taking your eye off the revenue creation ball. Rather what I’m recommending will help you generate more revenue, with greater velocity by simply doing the right thing in putting your customer’s needs first.

I hear a lot of noise about the tough economy, and revenue being down for many companies. I hear complaint upon complaint that companies just don’t have money to spend, and that nobody is buying. If you’re experiencing this type of reaction from your customer, it’s not because they don’t have money to spend, it’s because you’re selling and not adding value. It’s because you’re talking and not listening. It’s because you don’t get it…

It’s not about you, your company, your products or your services. It’s about meeting customer needs and adding value. When you start paying more attention to your customer needs than your revenue needs, you’ll find you no longer have a revenue problem to complain about.

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Matt, you are spot on with your article. I spend day after day explaining the same thing to my clients and prospective clients. In fact there is a steadily growing trend to migrate sales activities to inside positions. Of course most inside sales folks are not “natural born” salespeople (otherwise they would be outside already), but the skills of rapport building, questioning, listening and building trust through a relationship based upon trust can be developed. I just finished a parable called “Hooked on Hopium” (available on Amazon) that details one of those old sales types you referenced. Perhaps collectively we can change the old paradigms of “Salespeople”. Of course they will have to stop selling long enough listen to someone else!

To start – the job of “SALES” has been around for a thousand years and will be around long after people have forgotten what a chief strategy officer or web architect was. I am a SALESPERSON – that is what I do.

Next – you obviously do not understand the role of a salesperson. You wrote: “When you start paying more attention to your customer needs than your revenue needs, you’ll find you no longer have a revenue problem to complain about.” This is simply not true. In the business world, companies will take advantage. Their needs will include you losing money working for them – if you let them. A real salesperson concentrates on meeting the needs of the prospective customer AND the needs of his or her company.

Then – you describe what an ideal sales process would be like and say that sales training like SPIN & consultative sale are obsolete – except that the process that you described IS what was taught (so how can it be obsolete)? Perhaps you have not experienced good execution of this training.

I agree that good sales organizations need to use all of the latest tools – internet, twitter etc. for marketing and lead generation – that is only common sense.

Finally, this one is a gem – “Teach your sales force to become true professionals focused on helping their customers for all the right reasons vs. closing the big deal for personal benefit.” What???? Salespeople are not clerks, they are paid in large part on commission and they are motivated by personal benefit. If you don’t understand this, then you don’t understand sales.

Sam, speaking as a client and not a salesperson, I can tell you without hesitation that if you approached me in the manner that you have written, you would be shown the door. On top of that, you would never be invited back to the negotiating table ever again.

Mike’s point in the article if you read between the lines, and honestly you don’t even need to do much of that, is that before you even think about trying to sell me on a product or service, you need to get to know me as a customer first. You need to be willing to put MY needs above yours or your company’s. You need to understand the problems I am trying to solve so that you can either provide a solution that will meet my needs or refer me to someone who can. In my mind, doing either of those means you are looking out for ME, and for me to get that “warm fuzzy” feeling means your efforts will work toward our mutual benefit.

Translation: If you can meet my needs in a manner that exceeds your competitors, you will get the sale. That’s what being a “service organization”, and not a “sales organization” is all about.

As a buyer, I can assure you that you would not sell me. If I am offered value and service and answers to my questions, I will be more likely to deal with that person. If someone comes in and tries to “sell” me something I will keep looking.

First of all, if you are good at selling – you the prospect won’t even know you are being sold – so how are you going to show me the door?

My problem with this article is that it only looks at one dimension of sales and ignores the 2nd and 3rd part of a sale.

The first part is listening to the prospect, understanding their problems and meeting or exceeding their needs.

The second part is ensuring that the business is profitable for your company as a salesperson. There are endless buyers who think win-win is you losing money selling to them.

The third piece is insuring that the prospect can get the money to buy your product or service. In other words, there are many buyers who are enthusiastic about a product, can see real value in it – but cannot get the money from their CFO. Ironically they all say “getting money should not be a problem – I have not been turned down yet”.

So as a salesperson (yes I said SALESPERSON), if you just concentrate on the first part – you will delight your company with unprofitable business or waste all your time with people who in the end can’t buy.

I will say that I have noticed that the art of selling has gone down lately as many unschooled people have entered sales – perhaps that is what all the angst is about among buyers.

Sorry about the name Mike, I saw that as I hit “Submit” but as you know you cannot get them back. Think I combined Mike and Myatt – probably not the first time that has happened.

Another thought I do not see in the posts is the fact that buying behavior has changed radically. After making a decision to buy, or at least consider purchasing a product or service, buyers research that product or service via the web until the point they are comfortable contacting a vendor of same. They are 80% of the way down the decision trail when they first speak to a live person about the opportunity. Thus “show up and throw up” does not work, because the buyer probably knows as much about market alternatives as the salesperson. Only by asking questions to determine if there is a fit (for both parties) will a salesperson earn the trust required for a sale to occur. You earn respect based upon the questions you ask, not the facts/opinions/crap about your company you spew.

I half agree with you. I am a sales person. I take the consultative approach to a sales. But at the same time I build need with the customer for more services. Sometimes its more than the customer needs so I can boost my check and have more revenue for my company. Is this wrong? maybe. But I can tell you taking the consultative approach has gotten better results than a pushy sales person.

Having confidence in your product and building rapport/trust with a customer can go a long way with selling.

I really appreciate that. I concur. Mike knows his stuff! You know yours, too! Yes….it’s vital for us to read in between the lines what Mike is saying about today’s atmosphere among potential and actual clients/customers.

Also, to add to Mike’s reasoning: It’s not all about “driving traffic” to your site, either. It’s more like being sincere enough, accommodating enough, relevant enough, and congenial enough for others to whom this is demographically applicable, to want to visit it. If they do, they ultimately decide of what value our offerings can be to their lives and to the lives of others they’re concerned for.

Of all the comments in Mr. Myatt’s defense, to me, yours is the best! Thanks for sharing!

With all your due respect as well, you don’t get the figurative way Matt expressed his points. The bottom line is that the entire ‘sales’ (call it the way you want) has shifted. We deal with EMPOWERED buyers and consumers these days. You must be part of the old timer type of sales guy group to be defending it, because really, this is the new reality. You don’t adjust yourself, you’ll soon be…out of work. Good luck